Our client, a regional electrical contracting company, maintains several concurrent projects at various work sites from private residential homes to commercial and retail settings. This organization was outgrowing its existing project management software (QuickBooks) and required an upgrade to continue to provide the quality of work that they are known for.
They needed a flexible, scalable, and reliable financial accounting system to properly track and report on the business activity as they expanded and experienced growth in project revenues, expenses, and employees. Intone was contracted to assist the enterprise to install a new ERP system and migrate their current QuickBooks data. The client also sought to incorporate a digital/mobile technology for field reporting to improve customer service response times and manage work orders more effectively.
Our experienced Real Estate and Construction experts performed an in-depth ‘as-is’ analysis of the client’s data quality and sources, documenting workflows, processes, compliance and reporting requirements. A key goal of this engagement was to improve the accuracy and the quality of data utilized to manage and deliver better construction methods and services, reduce materials costs, comply with federal, state and local reporting and regulatory requirements, and effectively process data from different sources.
Using this current state of our client’s business processes, controls and reporting requirements, Intone developed roadmaps and detailed plans for the process enhancements and solution selection process.
Intone completed the assessment phase of the engagement and developed detailed roadmaps and detailed workflows. We then evaluated several ERP (enterprise resource planning) applications, with the goals of achieving interdependence and operational synergies within its business model. The systems Intone reviewed were cloud-based and managed entirely off-site by the ERP provider.
Notably, the advantage of cloud-based solutions is not expensive, in terms of upfront investments in IT hardware and servers there is no need for a significant number of clients or IT staff to manage it. Our in-house ERP specialists know cloud-based implementations and are usually faster and easier to deploy than on-site deployments, ongoing maintenance is simpler because the cloud-based ERP provider is responsible for keeping the technology up to date.
Based on the innovative industry analysis and recommendations, the client chose Sage 300 CRE (Construction and Real Estate) as their ERP system which features industry-specific intelligence they needed for monitoring project costs. In conjunction with the Project Management and Service Management modules within Sage 300 CRE, the company is able to monitor job costs and project performance in real-time while also enhancing the company’s responsiveness by enabling field staff to fulfill work orders remotely via a mobile device.
Possessing information that is up-to-date and accurate is critical for the success of each and every project. Our client now can provide their customer’s confidence in managing projects with proper processes in place to ensure their projects are on track and the change requested is updated, recorded and responded to in a timely manner.